Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution

How so? Why don't you find those papers that you claim evidence non-random mutations and see if this is the case.

percy wrote;{qsWe're talking about the evidence that we have in hand now. No one is ruling out what might be discovered in the future. Are you offering as support for your position that as yet undiscovered evidence might be found to support it?[/qs]What I am saying is that Shapiro and others who are investigating and espousing Natural Genetic Engineering and Natural Genome Editing are postulating that there may in fact be non-random "intelligent" choices made by cells that lead to evolutionary changes in a directed manner.
That the scientists on this board should keep an open mind and be prepared to accept that evolution may not be non-random, even in regards to fitness.
I am not saying evolution has not and is not happening, but that it may in fact be directed.

Percy wrote;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The paper sets out findings in re to bacteria exhibiting chemical communciations to form structural changes. That bacteria exhibit communciation based cooperation amoung colonies whereas they coordinate gene expressions, and regulate cell differentiation and divisions.
That bacteria obtain information from the enviroment. That bacterial exhibit behavior much like multicellular organisms.
That bacterial communciate by means of bio-chemical means in re
sportulation, as well as exhibiting behavioral responses.
That bacteria make decisions under stress.Based on those findings the authors postulate that; and; This is the area the Natural Genetic Engineering and Natural Genome Editing people are moving.
I am not saying it is proven now, but it well may be in the future and this would be a immense change in the modern darwinian theory of evolution

Dr. Adequate writes; I was being sarcastic. Would you not agree that Barbara McClintock was severely attacked when she first proposed her findings and quit publishing for quite some time before her work was finally accepted?
That was my analogy to what Shapiro and the Natural Genetic Engineering and Naural Genome Editing advocates are now going through. Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.

Shapiro is not saying that evolution is directed. He is saying that mutations can be driven by cellular processes that he prefers to label non-random, but that the result is highly non-deterministic. As Shapiro said in his reply to you that you provided in Message 732: And as Shapiro said in his reply to Molbiogirl that she provided in Message 810: Shapiro thinks evolution is "highly non-deterministic" and he can in no way be interpeted as claiming that evolution is directed. Furthermore, he would disagree violently with this statement you made in Message 846: Shapiro believes that all the complexity of life came about naturally. We're all prepared to accept the evidence in hand. If evidence were beginning to trickle in that evolution may be non-random and directed then we would indeed be remiss if we ignored that evidence, but no such evidence is trickling in. There is no evidence for cells directing their own evolution according to the necessities of the environment. There is no known mechanism by which a cell could know in advance what effect a mutation might have. I understand that you think so, but please also understand that Shapiro does not think so. The word "directed" in any form did not appear in his email reply to you, nor did it appear in any other form such as "guided." Here are some of the things he did tell you that clearly indicate the non-directed nature of evolution: Variation occurs because mutations are random with regard to their effect on the organism. Combinatorial change is the way that the different mutations interact, which multiplies the variation. Natural selection operates on the variability produced by what Shapiro prefers to call non-random cellular processes. The only aspect of the process of evolution that determines what works and doesn't work any given environment is natural selection. Cells have no internal mechanism for figuring this out. Cells do not know whether it is warmer or colder or wetter or dryer or anything else about the environment. Each mutation is a roll of the dice regarding potential success or failure. Survivors get to pass their genes on to the next generation.--Percy

It is not a paper.
It is an opinion piece.Why don't you find a peer reviewed paper that shows evolution is directed?
Stick to the biology journals.And just leave Shapiro alone.
He really doesn't like it when IDists co-opt his work.

I never said Shapiro was an IDsts. You should look at the video he mentioned in his answer to my inquiry. He states his postion is between modern Darwinism and Intelligent Design..Please reread Shapiro's Boston Review article where he said; Am I putting words in Shapiro's mouth?I am reading some peer reviewed papers that indicate all fitness mutations are not random. As soon as I digest them I will post a message.

percy writes; I will be posting papers from Natural Genetic Engineering and Natural Genome Editing scientists who go ever further than Shapiro.
Are you familar with Guenter Witzany, John Mattick, and Giuseppe Damiani to name a few?The way that evolution works is changing gentle persons.The King is dying, long live the King.Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.

The king, who acceded to the throne as an infant at the death of his father King Teleology, is now notably taller, better-muscled, more intelligent, and in better health than he was as a child.Long live the king.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Where in that paragraph do you see anything about directed evolution? The effect on fitness of "the Fluid Genome, subject to episodic, massive and non-random reorganizations capable of producing new functional architectures" is still random. You can see even more clearly that Shapiro isn't advocating directed evolution when he says this elsewhere in his Boston Review article that: In other words, Shapiro believes that different gamete cells of the same organism can contain major different chromosome reorganizations. If the organism's cellular machinery were capable of making decisions about what genetic changes would improve fitness then it wouldn't construct multiple different chromosome reorganizations in the organism's gametes. If it knew what was a better genome then it would produce it, but it doesn't know, because despite Shapiro's misuse of terms like "sentient" the cell has no clue what genetic changes might improve fitness. That's because the effect on fitness of changes are *highly non-deterministic*. The multiple chromosome reorganizations are all random with respect to fitness because of this non-determinism, although more importantly because there is simply no mechanism by which a lifeform's cellualr machinery could know in advance what effect any specific genetic change might have. That can only be known after the fact, after the organism and its descendants have lived out their lives.In order to convince anyone here that we have the wrong take on Shapiro you need to find him actually claiming that evolution is directed. So far you're just misinterpreting his misuse of terms like "non-random" and "sentient" as meaning that evolution is directed.--Percy

I'm shuddering just thinking of the torture you're going to inflict on the meaning of English words. I know you're not a creationist (because you said so, and you wouldn't steer us wrong, right?), but still it's interesting that you're repeating the same claim creationists have been making for over half a century. It usually begins something like this: "More and more scientists are coming to recognize the bankruptcy of the now-in-a-shambles theory of evolution..."--Percy

No. He doesn'tYou're just as bad as Dembski and Behe. "Oh, Shapiro doesn't agree with me when I say his works supports intelligent design but look at what his work says!"Need I remind you. He was so pissed off at you IDiots co-opting his work that he wrote the New York Times.

Would you deny that she got a frickin' Nobel Prize? Then it is a very poor analogy, for the following reasons.(1) What Shapiro is talking about is not, by and large, his research --- he has merely co-opted it to his rhetoric. This makes him different from McClintock(2) There is no-one at all, on this thread or in the wider scientific community, who denies the results to which he is referring. This makes him different from McClintock.(3) The difference between him and anyone else who is interested in genetics is solely his rhetoric. Have I denied any of the scientific results that he has cited? I have not. What I condemn in him is that he uses the words "non-random" where he ought to say "non-equiprobable" and that he uses the words "intelligence in the cell" when other words would better apply to the various phenomena that he mentions. This makes him different from McClintock --- she was not questioned for using the words "magic evolution pixies" to describe her results, because she did not.(Shapiro reminds me of the old joke: "Your paper is both good and original. Unfortunately, the parts which are good are not original, and the parts which are original are not good.")(4) Barbara McClintock was proved right, and received amongst other honors a Nobel Prize. This has not yet happened to Shapiro. Most maverick scientists turn out to be wrong. (They laughed at the Wright brothers. They also laughed at the Marx Brothers.) Until he is shown to be right in some way, there is no reason to suppose him to be a scientist of the McClintock class. This makes him different from McClintock.

Shapiro believes the modern synthesis of Darwin's theory of evolution with genetics is no long accurate because of its emphasis on random point mutations as the source of variation. He sees non-random cellular processes as a significant contributor of mutations and therefore also of variation. He also sees this cellular processes as accomplishing change at the higher level of cellular architecture.The big difference between random mutation through chemical accident and Shapiro's non-random cellular processes can be made clear through an analogy. Imagine a house that can "evolve" only by very simple mutations, such as randomly adding, moving or deleting a board or a nail. Changes would be very slow in developing. If the environment required a new door on one side then the trial and error approach of random change followed by selection would take a very, very long time. This is analogous to how Shapiro views the modern synthesis.Now imagine a house that can "evolve" by randomly adding, moving or deleting windows, doors, stairs, walls, shelves, floors and roofs. The odds of getting a new door on one side are greatly improved, since change is now operating on the level of working sub-parts. This is analogous to how Shapiro thinks the cell really works. This is why Shapiro describes a cell as capable of re-architecting itself, and when described in this way it explains why he is so excited about the idea.But the effect of actual Shapiro-style changes is still random. In the analogy, doors and all kinds of other things will appear and disappear and move randomly around, and when a door does appear or move it might end up in the roof, the floor, the middle of a room, or on the wrong side of the house. If and when a door appears or moves is random, and where it ends up is also random. The changes are not directed according to need in Shapiro's view.--Percy

Shadow posted;He states his postion is between modern Darwinism and Intelligent Design.. Molbiogirl please do not write something that you don't research. That is the first rule we learned in law school.If you would listen to the tape shapiro linked in his answers to me, message 732. You will hear the following:At approx 1:20 into tape he is introduced as the 3rd way between modern Darwinian evolution and Intelligent Design.In his remarks at approx 21:50 into video he stated he agrees wtih the IDst. critique of the modern theory in regards to COMPLEXITY, but does not agree with their solution of God as the answer.You should really listen to the whole video because he does state evolutionary change by descent and gradual change is not accurate and the change is not random.Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.